A power outage on Wednesday afternoon took power out to about 2500 Ameren customers and led to many businesses just closing for the day. The outage occurred at 12:43 on Wednesday afternoon and was off for about 2 ½ hours in most of the area, although some were out a little longer than that. According to Ameren’s website, about half the customers in the 62471 zip code were without power and nearly all of the Ameren customers in the 62418 zip code were in the dark. The outage in Vandalia left dozens of businesses without power and the led to many businesses closing for the day, not knowing when the power would be restored. WKRV-WPMB attempted to contact the media representative from Ameren, but has not received any returned calls or emails at this time. The cause of the outage, according to Ameren’s website, was “animal on line.”